Thoughts On The End of iChurch

iChurch

"Thoughts On "The End of iChurch: To Build Beloved Community, Unitarian Universalism Needs a New Narrative"

This thinking means a great deal to me (having just completed a series with my minister, Megan Foley of Sugarloaf Congregation of UU's (I as a lay leader), a series based on the UU World article by Rev. Fredric Muir, "The End of iChurch: To Build Beloved Community, Unitarian Universalism Needs a New Narrative". Helen Pop Dear UU friends, I posted this today somewhere else and was asked to share it so it could be shared, so here goes:

I have been thinking a great deal lately about the Church of the 21st Century. I think that we have such great potential to impact each other and our communities when we work together and see ourselves as one regardless of our traditional congregational and geographical borders. I guess the best way to explain would be to put it in outline form. Please insert your geographical area designation for the world "cluster."

Board and Officers - Have yearly Board and President Kickoffs that include:
• Orientation - What do Boards do and how do they do it, including sharing how it is done in each congregation and what can we learn from each other
• Leadership Training - that includes conflict and change management skills
• UU orientation - A 101 on UUism
• Serving with Grace
• Social time – to help have congregation leaders form informal links

Cluster Calendaring/Meetings
• Sharing Calendars - in order to inform and support each other in our efforts - Too often we double book things, not entirely unavoidable, but certainly more foreseeable.
• Cluster Social Events - Designed to bring UU congregations together to cross borders and create joy, opportunities for connection and a UU esprit de cores
• Committee Chairs Meetings – To brainstorm, share ideas and best practices. - Membership, Social Justice, Fund Raising, others
• Regular meetings of professional staff by category such as Administrators, DRE's, Music Directors and the like – To brainstorm, share ideas and best practices
• Cluster Workshops, Activities and Events - Music events such as combined Choir Concerts (such as Sources Cantata), Seminary for A Day, co-sponsored speakers, Worship Retreats

Now a little more radical
• Shared Purchasing - What if we thought about what we buy and did some shared purchasing, from cleaning supplies to insurance, could we find better deals?
• Shared Website Hosting - We all have websites, maybe it would be helpful to use one vendor and one shared and paid for webmaster.
• Shared Custodial Services
• Faith Formation in the 21st Century - How are we using things like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Weebly, and other electronic and New Media to deliver and develop our faith across the generations, could we work on that together?

Ok, now for the more radical suggestions:
• Shared Cluster Staff - For positions that are seemingly important for our growth and mission of the 21st Century, and that we struggle with our own budgets, these positions would be housed in one of our larger congregations (or maybe not) and the ratio of pay and the hours of each position would vary, but the intent would be for them to assist with cluster-wide efforts and to support individual congregational efforts as well. This could include working with individuals or teams in the congregation in each focus area:
o Social Justice Coordinators
o Young Adult and Campus Ministry
o Marketing/Outreach/PR
o BOOKKEEPERS
o Standing on the Side of Love Coordinator
o Others

At one point we had designed and suggested a model here in SD where there would be a lead staff person for the cluster (in a specific topic category) with 50% of their time going to their specific congregation and 50% of their time going to support all the other congregations. This person would then coordinate individual staff people at the individual congregations at perhaps 10% time, interns or students or something, who would work on congregationally specific things. This could all be funded with appropriate percentages coming from the congregations and/or some outside grants or funds.

And a big one!
• Ministerial Specialization - What this would look like is that each minister in the cluster would devote a certain percentage of their time to efforts in other congregations, whatever that would be, 10% or 20%. In other words, in addition to or instead of shared cluster staff, there would be a minister that would help coordinate all the cluster social justice efforts and support healthy social justice efforts, training and cooperation in the congregations.

The same would go for Young Adult and Campus Ministry, helping to coordinate and support each congregation and all the congregations, especially in light of how many of our congregations send students to campuses that cross our congregational boundaries. Other areas of Ministerial specialization could include: o Human Resources, Administration and Finance o Concerts and Music Ministry o Fundraising o Marketing/Outreach/PR o Trainings and Workshops o Interfaith Outreach to promote shared values in the public arena

And the final radical idea would be: That the budgets of the congregations, the money raised by the congregations, would in some percentage be thought of as a larger pool of money to cross the boundaries of our traditional congregational and geographical borders and be used to support a broader perspective of what congregation means. Examples of this could include:
• Ministers who serve more than one congregation
• Preaching in more than one place each month
• Providing support and expertise in many ways to area congregations
• Looking at staffing differently

Perhaps even thinking even more differently about what a congregation is for instance (which I hear is happening in some form already in Houston) - The Unitarian Universalists of San Diego County - Solana Beach Congregation, San Diego Congregation, Palomar Congregation, etc. -- Or Summit UU Fellowship: A San Diego County Unitarian Universalist Congregation with one ministry staff led by a senior minister or ministerial leadership team and one board.

Who knows what other possibilities could happen??
• Some kind of occasional shared Worship on Sundays and perhaps on other days
• Committees, Teams, Task Forces designed as ongoing efforts to meet needs, some already mentioned above and others to be thought of.

So, this is some of what I have been thinking and discussing with others. I have no idea where it may go from here except I have brought some of this to our cluster lay led group, SUUN: The San Diego UU Network, and we are working on a leadership conference in January to do training and workshops but also that would bring congregational leaders together to work on and explore some of these ideas further.

If you got this far, thanks for reading this brain dump, I guess, as always, we will all see what happens next. I would be happy to discuss further.

In faith and love,
 David